Till you are cooked yourself!
I found it difficult to concentrate at the best of times, but today was near impossible. Earlier that morning, my father’s friend Vincent and his other shooting partner had been setting up a pigeon hide in the field outside my window. They had left for a couple of hours and when I saw the magnet whirling I knew they were there.
Every few minutes the shots rung out and I kept turning round in my seat, knowing full well I shouldn’t, I was hoping to see a bird hitting the stubbles, or better still one of the men getting a shot. My teacher became increasingly irritated, not by the shooting but by a young “McGonigal” who cared less about maths and more about chasing rabbits with ferrets and watching men shoot birds. Finally lunch time came and I went straight out to the fence and got talking to Vincent. I remember longing to be in that hide with them, I remember being in awe of them and the many other shooters, hunters and anglers I was lucky enough to have known as a child, many of them now gone. I was very privileged to have grown up around men who were masters of their sport. Vincent who is no longer with us, as are many of the men I remember was a keen shot, a salmon angler and a real countryman. He was also a neighbour of a man called Archie Fleming, someone who I am sure if he had ever taken up the pen would have been one of the many well known names of today. Archie at one time was having work done to his house and for quite sometime lived in a caravan. Most people including myself would despise such a move! Being turfed from the comfort of your home in mid winter to the confines of a small caravan would be a nightmare for most, but not Archie. I remember going to visit him with my father and he would be sitting in his caravan, a small vice clamped to the bench and a magnifying glass curved over it and bags of feathers, furs, dubs and waxes sitting everywhere. What amazed me most was that among these mallard wings, pheasant capes, silks and jungle cocks, Archie never looked for anything but simply kept his eyes on the vice and reached out for what he needed next. The smell of pipe tobacco, the warmth of a small gas fire and the talk of big fish was amazing for a keen youngster. Poetry, times tables and other nonsense didn’t interest me one bit, and even less so when there was pigeon shooting out the back! That day I might as well not have been at school because as long as Vincent and his friend were in the field every word my teacher said went in one ear and straight back out the other, field sports seemed a better education to me! How my teacher put up with me was a mystery. When the class was instructed to create a scrap book on a particular subject mine was on fishing. I took flies from my fathers old sponge lined tobacco tins and stuck them in the scrap book, detailing each one and what it was made from, and my poor teacher had a job not to prick her fingers on the pages upon pages of salmon hooks. When Christmas came around and we made cards for our parents, I presented my mother with a card which contained pictures of rabbits, ferrets and pheasants, not a Christmas tree or a bit of Holly in sight! The other pupils in the class had pet rabbits, guinea pigs and horses but I had ferrets! I got my first two ferrets when I was about 9 years old never looked back since, only ever being without at least a pair a couple of times in my life. The first rabbit I ever caught was in my back garden, myself and my brother some days after obtaining my ferrets chanced upon a small warren to the back of the small wood which bordered on our house. I carefully placed 5 or 6 torn and bedraggled purse nets someone had given me with pegs made from skirting board, and entered my new Coney Catchers I had bought from Des Tosh, a local ferreting man. Within a few minutes that all familiar rumbling which still excites me to this day got louder and louder, until a brown ball exploded through the leaves and into my carefully set net. I landed on top of the rabbit and held it as tight as my hands would allow, before untangling it from the net and trying to dispatch it the way I had saw the older men do it, which I soon realised I couldn’t do, and had to call for my father. That rabbit was important because although it was one rabbit, it was massive for me. A rabbit that I caught with my own nets and my own ferret, I remember taking my school friends to the hole afterwards just so they could see where it was caught, such was the excitement at the time!
My school was small, very small and in fact when I went secondary school there were as many people in my class then as there was in my entire school. The grounds were amazing and we had free reign in them at break times to do as we pleased. When autumn came around, conkers became currency and the biggest and best were to be found on the school grounds high among the tops of the ancient Horse Chestnut trees. We were allowed them, but only if they fell, and the reason was that the older boys that had gone before us had taught us that if you armed yourself with a suitable stick or lump of deadwood from among the grounds, really good conkers could be obtained by a strong throw coupled with a good aim and if you were lucky, you could knock them right out of the tree. If you were unlucky you could knock your class mate right out with that same stick or piece of deadwood, and so it was that the practice became illegal in school, although it never really died out as long as we had a watcher in place! During one day in class we were doing poetry as we often did, and again I was paying little attention. I sat thinking about something or other, until in the background some words caught my attention. “Have you snared a weeping hare? Have you whistled No Nunny and gunned a poor bunny, or blinded a bird of the air”. My teacher was looking at me and my ears pricked up. What was this poem talking of guns and Hares. She read it again, and I listened intently.
Have you been catching of fish, Tom Noddy?Have you snared a weeping hare?Have you whistled “No Nunny” and gunned a poor bunny,Or blinded a bird of the air? Have you trod like a murderer through the green woods?Through the dewy deep dingles and glooms,While every small creature screamed shrill to Dame Nature”He comes – and he comes!”? Wonder I very much do, Tom Noddy,If ever, when you are a-roam,An Ogre from space will stoop a lean face,And lug you home: Lug you home over his fence, Tom Noddy,Of thorn-sticks nine yards high,With your bent knees strung round his old iron gunAnd your head a dan-dangling by: And hung you up stiff on a hook, Tom Noddy,From a stone-cold pantry shelf,Whence your eyes will glare in an empty stare,Till you are cooked yourself!
She stared at me, reinforcing every word and knowing full well because of the content I was paying full attention. I listened closely, as she repeated “”Whence your eyes will glare in an empty stare, till you are cooked yourself. Then she looked at me fiercely and said, someday that might happen to you Mr McGonigal, and smiled. Mrs Anne Gray was the name of my teacher, and although I have had quite a few over the years she in particular always was one I liked. That poem from that day which is called “Tit for Tat” By Walter De La Mere must have sat in the back of my mind until I came across it one day in a book a few years ago, as soon as I read the first line it came back to me like it was yesterday, the pigeon shooting fields, the poem, and the school. All those days are gone, just like Vincent, Archie, John McIntyre and all the old boys who nowadays seem to be a dying breed. Where have the men gone who knew where the Waterhen would lay her eggs, what gate a Hare would go through or the best place on the river for your fly? For us then, to catch a trout, a rabbit or for someone to bring home a Hare was everyday life, and sometimes I don’t like to say it because it makes me sound like I think I grew up in the 50’s, but the world today is a whole lot different even from what it was twenty years ago. There have been many changes since then and I always look back fondly and feel glad that I grew up in the area I did with the people I knew, for it was a rather special way to grow up.
The summer came and went, and although it was only a few months ago now it seems like a long time. Mr Philip Lawton and I first met at Ballywalter game fair about 4 years ago. The plan was he was to become a policeman in pursuit of that “Bloody Poacher” and boy did he pursue me! We did our first stint together that year and afterwards I said to Philip, “How did we get involved in this”? To which he replied “Bloody Albert, but I am more worried how we are going to get out of it”! We stayed in touch and Philip and I became very good friends. He would ring me quite often over the winter. And each time he did it was with a new idea for the poacher or policeman, sometimes he had found something new, a coat, a badge and then a proper R.I.C hat! More often than not I missed his call and he always left me a comical voice mail which made me laugh. As most of you will know Philip was a man of many talents, and was a gifted musician & writer, He wrote under Plus Twos for Irish Country Sports and Midlander for the Countrymans Weekly, but as well as this Philip had much more writing on the cards which unfortunately he never got to finish . His talents on camera as the policeman really shone through in a small sketch at Shane’s Castle with Harry Cook in 2012, and he wouldn’t have looked out of place on ITV on Friday night in dads army or last of the summer wine! Throughout the short time I knew him he was a great friend, a fantastic policeman and someone I am proud to have known. So to Philip I wish to say thanks, for the fun you put into the Victorian Poacher, for the real and genuine friendship you gave me and the great memories I have forever, Thank you.
It is now about time for me to go. The evenings are drawing in and my Lurchers are getting anxious. The ferrets too are keen and looking forward to resuming work after their lay off & tyhe gun needs oiled, Have a good season.